The present invention relates to a tamper evident closure for bottles and containers in general and more particularly to a closure having a cap and a tamper indicating lower ring or belt, these two parts being linked together by a weak breakable circumferential area that will break at opening of the container.
In bottling and packaging foods, drugs, and household products, which are currently sold in the market place by the millions of containers, it is necessary to use closures that are efficient and economical at the same time. Tamper evident closures satisfying these requirements are needed. These closures must be structurally simple and must make evident the fact that the container was opened.
In certain currently available tamper evident closures, there are a number of problems with relation to a weakened area that is obtained by means of a linkage between the cap and the lower ring. These closures use a number of vertical bridges that break at the time of opening. The bridges are separated by circumferentially extending slots. If made easy to break at removal, these bridges will also easily break at the capping of the container. On the bottling or packaging line, this creates problems and stoppages. Of course, if the bridges are made stronger, the cap becomes hard to remove. To avoid breaking of the bridges during capping, one proposal has been to use, in the weakened area, one or more pushing teeth or ratchet teeth in the shape of saw-teeth. These are oriented in a way that, at the time of applying the closure by screwing it onto the container neck, the tooth or teeth apply turning torque from the cap to the ring. The cap pushes with it the lower ring and without stress on the bridges. See the expired French Pat. No. 1,536,459. These closures are not only difficult to manufacture, but they are also very expensive, given the complexity of the molds required for their formation.